Japan ready for 4K World Cup

By Chris Forrester

May 30, 2014

Osaka-based Kansai TV says it is ready to transmit 4K World Cup content over-the-air terrestrially, and helped by Elemental Technology’s encoding/decoding solutions at 14.5 Mb/s at 60 frames-per-second. Kansai is part of the Fuji Network System.

Tests carried out last week, using the 2014 Osaka Women’s Marathon, filmed in 4K, and using 64QAM modulation worked well and delivered the content over Kanai’s ISDB-T transmission system to Toshiba Ultra-HD TV sets.

“We could not have done this without Elemental, which has set the pace for the industry in terms of proven 4K/HEVC transmissions and is the only video processing vendor that offers 4Kp60 live encoding with high quality video,” said Koichi Ono, deputy director of the technology promotion division for the Kansai Telecasting Corporation’s broadcast technology department.

“With World Cup 2014 around the corner, pressure is intensifying to realise successful 4K OTA broadcasts,” said Keith Wymbs, chief marketing officer for Elemental. “We are thrilled that media leaders such as Kansai TV are using Elemental video processing to tap into the high quality of 4K to bring sports fans’ experiences to a whole new level.”